The House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit held a hearing this week to examine regulations for financial institutions and to explore ways to address regulatory challenges.
One of the key regulatory challenges is capital requirements.
“While I believe in robust capital requirements, I don’t think capital should be required to the point that it consolidates risk and eliminates choice in the marketplace for commercial and individual clients. The reality is that we still live in a world where the financial regulatory regime stifles growth and limits the availability of financial products,” Subcommittee Chairman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) said. “We need smarter, tailored regulatory regimes that promote not just transparency, but also effective consumer and systemic protections.”
Kevin Fromer, president and CEO of the Financial Services Forum, said it is time to conduct a review of the post-financial crisis framework.
“Integration of the stress testing and capital regimes to achieve a more simplified and harmonized capital framework is a laudable goal,” Fromer said. “The Federal Reserve should undertake a broader review of its capital and stress testing programs to ensure that boards of directors at financial institutions can clearly and appropriately make capital management decisions.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, said Dodd-Frank went too far. It imposed a series of capital regimes on large financial institutions that had nothing to do with the causes of the financial crisis. This, in turn, has hurt economic growth.
Dodd-Frank also hurt moderate-sized banks, Keith Noreika, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, said.
“Moderately-sized regional banking organizations with traditional and straight-forward business models that provide communities with their traditional banking needs, such as getting loans and having a place to make deposits, have been generally subject to the same stress testing, risk management, capital, and liquidity requirements that are applied to firms that are materially larger and more complex,” Noreika said. “These requirements have adversely impacted the lending activities of regional and community banks, and have increased the price of, and reduced the access to, credit for families, small businesses, and other job creators in our economy.”